How to conquer your next personal tax season

14th Mar 2019

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Every personal tax season can be an exhausting and stressful period for accountants. It can leave accountants with dread. External factors such as clients failing to send requested information can make the process even more problematic. The good news is that the move to digitalisation can simplify, streamline and speed up the process.

Here are some areas where internal processes can be improved and how implementing embracing digitalisation can make the personal tax season.

Firstly, it’s worth taking some analysing how your current process works. Set aside some time with people in your team who are critical to the process and work out where the bottlenecks are, and which stages of the process are the most problematic.

Now, it’s time to agree a strategy to improve your process. The easiest way to enhance your process and ensure it meets all your compliance needs is to add the latest integrated software into your process. Using the latest digital tools can create easy to use, standardised workflows, tailored to your practice which will increase how efficiently your practice operates and will decrease the stress leading up to the January deadline.

Here’s five ways how the latest integrated software can work for you:

#1: Get access to data quickerIntegrated software can link real-time data and your system, reducing the amount of time spent on manually entering and correcting data. Data can safely and securely flow through your system populating all the necessary fields and saving your team time. Simple changes to data, such as contact details, can be updated once and this will automatically flow through to your clients’ accounts and tax returns.

#2: Improve your profitabilityReduce the time spent exporting and tweaking the data as you move it from system to system. By automating your processes and integrating all your systems into one unified workflow can save your practice a significant amount of money.

#3: Reduce the opportunity for errorEnsure your team follow the same process by introducing consistent workflows throughout your practice. An integrated system can automatically highlight any errors or inconsistencies easily so that they can be amended quickly. Key areas of risk will be highlighted, helping to improve accuracy and reduce the risk of HMRC enquiries. Using integrated software can also help keep data safer. Information held in the system is regularly and automatically backed-up giving you that extra peace of mind. Furthermore, information can be shared with clients using an encrypted link, rather than via email. Reducing the risk that sensitive client data will be shared with the wrong person.

#4: Become more flexible Using the latest software means that you can flex your requirements up and down. This means that you can add other relevant modules as required to allow you, for example, to automate the review of your tax returns or prepare complex capital gains tax calculations easily. Additionally, real-time access to your client’s tax return data will allow you to make any edits live, dramatically speeding up the review process.

#5: Future proof your processesHMRC’s ambition is to become one of the most digitally advanced tax administrations in the world. VAT compliance is the first step of HMRC’s Making Tax Digital (MTD) programme and all elements of the tax system will be overhauled in due course. By using the latest integrated software takes the stress out of complying with any future process changes from HMRC. Software companies will automatically update processes and systems to comply with any changes in regulation.

Invest now for an improved personal tax season next yearDigitalisation is revolutionising the tax system. Tax compliance will become digitalised and the core value you will be providing your client will be validating the data. The technology to improve how efficiently your practice operates is already available. By integrating the latest software now, you can spend more time growing your business, helping grow your clients’ business and keeping a keen eye on future technology enhancements as they come on board.

How can Wolters Kluwer help you?Wolters Kluwer’s CCH Personal Tax simplifies and streamlines every step of the tax return process, from data collection and data entry through to review, approval and online filing. It enables your practice to deliver high quality tax work in the quickest possible time.

CCH Personal Tax is also unique in that it has a two-way transactional data sync with CCH OneClick, where any changes in CCH Personal Tax or CCH Accounts Production is automatically fed back into the bookkeeping software you are using. This manual process can be automated into a process that takes seconds rather than minutes.